E3 2012: Arma III’s Gorgeous Freedom

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Checking out a demo of Bohemia Interactive’s realistic military game.

By Charles Onyett

It’s tough to call Arma III a shooter because there’s so much to do aside from straightforward shooting. Sure, you can run across gigantic environments with a gun in hand and search for targets, but you can also jump into land vehicles and scan the ridges of hills for enemies using a white hot infared targeting system or take off in a helicopter and cut through the skies, pummeling land targets with machine gun fire and rockets.

In Arma III you can also dive beneath the waves. Underwater you’ll be able to swim through water in a diving suit or board a small submersible to travel more quickly. The attention to detail is extremely impressive, as sunlight beams through the surface that shifts up and down realistically with the waves. While in the submersible you’ll be able to control it from first-person view, showing all the controls and interface close up, and look around to see the scenery as it passes while you’re moving forward. If you eject, you can also fight underwater with firearms against other armed divers.

Above ground you’ll find the same attention to detail, as vehicle interiors are obsessively modeled, something you’ll see if you switch to first-person from third-person perspective to get close-up views of the interior, right down to your hands on the steering wheel. While on foot you’ll also have a number of sophisticated movement options like the ability to lie on your back while firing forward, in addition to prone, crouch and lean abilities, giving you a high degree of control over the stance of your fighter. You'll need to use those too, because life in Arma is a precious thing. It doesn't take much to kill you, so while traversing open terrain and approaching enemy compounds, you'll want to remain very aware of nearby cover spots. It's not an unusual thing to have no idea where a bullet came from, then drop to the ground and hide in tall grasses to give you some time to locate the attacker and line up a shot.

Arma III’s mission structure is going to be pretty open and the maps are enormous, so you’ll have a lot of freedom regarding how to complete mission objectives. Proper scouting and an intelligent approach to combat situations will be just as important as the actual shooting, making Arma III a much more comprehensive, rounded style of military experience than you might expect from looking at screenshots. With multiplayer elements and a heavy emphasis on mod support, expect many more styles of challenges to emerge from the community once the game is ready to go. As seen from the popularity of the Day Z mod for Arma II, Bohemia's passionate fanbase can create much different, exciting experiences even years after release.

Though it’s still early, Arma III was running surprisingly well at a demo station with an i7 processor and a single GTX 580 card. This is notable because the franchise has been notorious for sluggish framerates on even high end machines, and hopefully is an indication that might change when Arma III is released.